Steve Smith, Part 3
Coming Soon…
This is the third and final interview in our series of talks with the meditation teacher Steve Smith. If you haven’t listened to the previous episodes in the series, we recommend you check out Part 1 and Part 2.
Steve starts out describing his close relationship with U Tin Oo, who was a fellow monk alongside him. A former General in the Tatmadaw, he founded the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 1988 along with Aung San Suu Kyi and others. In the years prior to meeting Steve, U Tin Oo had served years in solitary confinement and endured unspeakable torture in Insein Prison. After being released, he ordained at Mahasi Sāsana Yeiktha. “He was very independent and strong of his own nature, and wanted there to be change [in the country],” Steve recalls. “I remember him speaking vehemently and passionately about trying to make those changes.” On a personal level, he recalls U Tin Oo’s “clear, inquisitive intelligent eyes,” and how passionately he worked to transform the country from a dictatorship to a democracy.
Steve relates that U Tin Oo would often stand by Aung San Suu Kyi’s side during the brief periods in the 1990s when she was allowed to speak to visitors who came to stand outside the gate of her home. As she developed a keen interest in practicing the Brahama Viharas, Steve remembers how these famous political speeches in front of her house begin to blend elements of that practice. And in more private moments, he tells of comparing notes with her about their favorite small monasteries from deep within the Sagaing Hills, and her deeply-held fear that this special region, where monks had come to for centuries to practice intensively, would one day become a tourist destination.
Another figure that turned up was the activist, Ko Jimmy, who Steve immediately latched onto. Aside from being of similar ages, he recalls how friendly and “playful” Ko Jimmy was. He also tells how Ko Jimmy took it upon himself to begin photographing and documenting everything in these informal meetings among future democracy activists, and was constantly making video and audio recordings even of casual conversations. “Ko Jimmy was so loved, and he flowed between all the groups,” Steve recalls, noting that he was equally at ease among politicians, diplomats, meditators, and foreigners alike. Additionally, Steve found Ko Jimmy had his finger on the pulse on everything that was happening during those years, no small feat in an environment where there was no Internet, and even journalism and basic expression was prohibited. Steve speaks with a deep sadness and heaviness in his voice when reflecting on the eventual fate of Ko Jimmy, who was murdered last year in a widely-condemned state execution.
Ko Jimmy, U Tin Oo and Aung Sang Suu Kyi were part of an extraordinary cast of characters assembled not just for parties and events, but also converged for dana ceremonies at Aung San Suu Kyi’s home, especially when Sayadaw U Pandita was invited. Making their way through the armed soldiers and military informants posted in front of the house, these were long, drawn-out affairs that provided Steve ample time for becoming acquainted with the guests. He remembers conversations in which they would discuss the corruption of various generals, and he would learn about which military figure was profiting personally from which illegal activity. Often Michael Aris, Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband, was there as well, along with their two children, allowing Steve to see the various sides of her personality, as she would shift from expressing a fiercely held political belief to suddenly becoming a doting mother, and go from being a serious meditative practitioner and devout Buddhist to quickly being socially comfortable and at ease. Where her biographers would later see a complex political figure wrapped inside an enigma, Steve saw a normal human being naturally embodying a variety of different “selfs” depending on the situation.
Steve describes how they started off as just “tea friends,” but little by little these meetings grew more frequent. Aung San Suu Kyi often tried to engage Steve in political discussions, but he would always try to steer the conversation back to practice. After he learned that her grandmother told her Jātaka Tales at bedtime when she was a young girl, Steve bought her a book of the Jātaka Tales. He also spoke with her about the Indian emperor, Ashoka, who was so central to the spread of Buddhism throughout that part of the world. In fact, Sayadaw U Pandita at some point asked Aung San Suu Kyi to give a talk to some ordained novices, and she chose to base it on Ashoka’s story.
Interestingly, news of her talk reached the military spymaster, Khin Nyunt, who used the occasion to call in U Pandita and grill him on the wisdom of permitting a female to impart the Dhamma to Buddhist monks. Yet U Pandita, with his deep knowledge of the scriptures, was the wrong person to challenge! As Steve explains, “he could cite at least a dozen [passages] off the top of his head where various women at various times, not only gave Dhamma talk to monastics, but where actually the monastics had profound Dhamma awakening experiences from the transmission of a woman's Dhamma.
This unyielding confidence in the truth of the Buddha’s teachings made U Pandita a formidable presence as a teacher as well, and some Burmese friends quietly suggested that Steve might want to seek out another monk who had a softer approach. But Steve had no intention of doing so. “The fierceness of that aspect of his personality could be so strong and unwavering,” he acknowledges, “and I can see how it can be intimidating to others, whether they were Burmese or Western.” But Steve realized that was just what he needed in a teacher, and interestingly enough, he saw the same characteristics in Aung San Suu Kyi, perhaps explaining why she, too, sought out U Pandita as a meditation guide.
“She’s like a chinthe, and she's facing outward,” Steve recalls U Pandita telling him once, referring to the mythical lion figure who guards the gates of many Burmese pagodas. “She is facing the social realm, the political realm, the realm of governing, and showing her strength and her fierceness for the side of goodness, righteousness, and Dhamma; in order to protect the inner sanctum, the purity, the practice, the Eight Fold Path, Dhamma liberation. When she was ready, she herself would turn around and enter the sanctum and take up the practices as before she had done.”
Steve brings all this first person history to bear when reflecting on the terrible Rohingya crisis during the transition period. “Even at the monasteries, there'd be talk about the danger of Muslim people coming into Burma, and then and the Buddhist Dhamma being lost,” he notes, referencing his visits from decades ago. While Steve often found himself confused by this fear, he never gave it much credence, as in his mind the greatest external threat to this “Buddhist Dhamma” came in the form of Western materialism. In addition, Steve’s own reading of the situation was that many Rohingya were not illegal immigrants as was being claimed, but had lived on that land for generations, and he expresses genuine bewilderment at the actions and decisions of his old friends who ascended to leadership positions. But as no opportunity arose to get his questions clarified, he is simply left without any answer for the later actions of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo and others regarding the Rohyinga.
When asked about how such great monastics as Mahasi Sayadaw or Sayadaw U Pandita might have responded to Myanmar’s current political crises, Steve is hesitant to speak for beings who may have been fully enlightened. Still, he has an opinion. “The last thing we might imagine was that they ever could be influenced or bought out in any way by anyone's wealth, particularly the wealth and power of the military,” Steve says, alluding to some of the current nationalistic monks who have become supporters of the Tatmadaw. He notes how they maintained a balance, refusing to acquiesce to military might on the one hand, while careful to not engage directly in the messy business of politics on the other, which could be a violation of their Vinaya. Instead, their contribution to politics was in continuing to propagate the Dhamma: many political figures, including ethnic leaders, visited their monasteries to practice, with the assumption if they took the teachings to heart, it would lead to their becoming better rulers. “They all sought the Dhamma… like a bee to honey, and that's why they came,” he says simply.
Steve laments that such powerful monastic presences are not taking greater leadership roles in these times, when perhaps they are needed most. “If those senior Sayadaws were around today, with their capacity, their formidable Brahma Vihara power of unconditional love, wise compassion, empathetic joy, and profoundly stabilizing equanimity, their insights from their attainments, or the ones with the psychic powers… I see them all calmly gathering… and offering their unique take from their wisdom, their humanity; held, fed, and nurtured by their deep immersion in Dhamma and practice and understanding, free of platitudes. I think they would just come from right where they were in the moment and be an example of and advocating for consistently peaceful if not sometimes fierce… response to meet and match the extremely unskillful and harmful and damaging actions of the tyrants.”
Steve also points to the monks who marched courageously in the streets during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, and turned their alms bowls upside down, a form of monastic protest in which a monk will not accept someone’s support, an indication of his condemnation of their conduct. He recalls U Pandita criticizing Burmese Buddhists, including many military figures, who regularly gave generous donations but never cared to reform their behavior, much less cultivate their inner being. He also disapproved of those who saw the “real pagoda” as the outer structure where one worships and performs rituals, rather than the inner heart which cultivates wisdom and compassion.
“Their mere presence spoke volumes,” he says in conclusion. “They sat with an uprightness that was more than their physical posture. You felt this rising up of real and pure righteousness and dignity that may have profound respect for humanity. And they're willing to give everything, to give their life for it! Their mere presence said everything to me, and nearly half a century later, I can still feel it, I can still feel the energetic nature of their presence and of their stature.”